Hi Folks,

This thread is where we can post any information about the progress of the Fall Project. 

Below are the information I promised at last nights meeting. 

Hi Folks,

Great kickoff to the project last night. Good Luck.  I'll be mounting my patterns to plywood today. 

Below is a copy of the announcement for the project that includes links to the book, plans and videos under the Homework section.

A copy of the presentation Powerpoint slides is attached. It will take you to Google Drive since it exceeds the 25MB file restriction.

 BACFBS Project Intro.pptx

Also here is a link to the AI generated meeting Report Summary. This is pretty cool and even reminded me of the things I needed to send out. 

Guild Project Fall 2025. (John LeJeune) The most recent news on the Guild Project Fall 2025: Build A Chair From Bulls%$t is that currently there are 8 participants.  There is room for more participants.  The project kicks off with a Zoom call September 30.  The project is based on Christopher  Schwarz's latest release and part of his pocket book series, Build A Chair From Bulls%$t. The premise of the project and the book itself is to demystify the challenges of acquiring materials and executing the chair  building process. Chris explains the ease of acquiring materials from your local big box store and simplifying the build process by eliminating some of the complex and challenging building techniques. In short, eliminating all those obstacles people conveniently come up with for not attempting a chair. 

This should be a fun and exciting project for guild members of ALL skill levels. To make it even more accessible, Chris has made the book available.  It is a free, no strings attached downloadable file. (We suggest buying the book from Lost Art Press for $21 to show him some love for all this effort.) In addition he has posted a series of videos showing you step by step how the entire process, including simple tools needed, getting materials, building and finishing.  The video is fun, light hearted and approachable. His apprentice Kale Vogt and Bridgid Gruber of Dinkles Workshop, take you through the process  in a twelve episode step by step video series. The class will be self guided but facilitated.  The goal is that we will help each other and share our experiences as we go through the build.  Hopefully we can do much of this over Zoom calls and meet a few times through the process. 

Our guild project will also have a twist.  We suspect some members have materials already in their shop and will not need to buy post hole digger handles to make legs. We encourage you to use any materials you want from simple to highly exotic.  We also suspect that all manner of fancy tools can be utilized by members who have attended The Fancy Lad Academy of Woodworking and Charcuterie. Have at it. Show us your stuff!  We will put no restrictions on how you execute this project. We think this will be a fun and inclusive approach. 

Homework: 

Get a copy of the book. or Download it here. 

The chair pattern is here. 

View the Videos on YouTube from Lost Art Press or Dinkles Workshop.

Contact John LeJeune for questions and admission.

Have a Great Day!

John LeJeune

I picked up my printed plans on the way back from the Brookline tool swap (Good to see you John!). The dowel selection at Lowe's and Woodcraft in Woburn was sad, but that's a problem for later.

Every time I use spray adhesive I remember how much I hate it, between the lingering smell of cancer and stray aerosolized glue sticking down my arm hair. should just use a glue stick for attaching templates. This isn't the first time I've come to the same realization, so I added a note for my future self.

The video and the book both say to cut out the templates before drilling for the mortise locations. I left some extra wood around the center mortise on the arm bow template and cut it off after drilling. Maybe chairmakers all have hand drill superpowers that let them center a brad point on the edge of a sheet, but I don't. Next time I might just drill all the holes before cutting out the profiles. I don't know how important it actually is to have the pilot hole for the center mortise on the template if you're going to have the centerline marked out anyway.

Had the pattern printed and found an old desk at ReStore to harvest wood from. (See other post "What wood?".)  Making more work for myself I suppose, since I'll need to prep the wood.

Reading the instructions, it says the chair leg can be tapered or not and "round, faceted, octagonal or whatever". That's a bit like going to cooking class and being told "season to taste". What if I have no taste? :P

I realize the theme of this chair is more or less "getting to done on my first stick chair", but will any of those choices make it look klunky?

So will anything roughly 1-1/2" in diameter look fine?

Related question on the armbow - is 3/4" thick just a convenient home center choice or would a slightly thicker bow look better? (my stock is 1", and wondering if I should plane it down to conform to the plan)

Picked up some nice pine at holt today for the seat blank.  Also discovered that my plans printout is oversized - need to see if I messed up the specs somehow.